


Jefferson Madden: The Demon Hatter of Storybrooke

by tjmystic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Sweeney Todd (2007)
Genre: Decapitation, Disturbing Themes, Murder, Other, Sexual Violence, Sweeney Todd AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name is Jefferson Madden, now, and he will have his revenge...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jefferson Madden: The Demon Hatter of Storybrooke

Jefferson Madden: The Demon Hatter of Storybrooke (1/?)  
Chapter 1

Rating: PG-13 at the moment (will be increased to “R” later due to violence)

Author’s Note: Welp, I’m sorry I’ve disappointed all of you with the ridiculous length of time it’s taken me to get Chapter 11 of Accustomed up :( I hope this helps just a little. Anyway, I guess I’ll go back to writing and let you get on with your reading. Enjoy!

Oh, one last thing - thanks to riskpig, fuckingnamechoise, fartoomanynotes, and kelyon for offering their advice on the characterization! Without them, I’d have never been able to figure out where I wanted to go with this plot :)

 

“Hoist the mainsail, ready the anchor! We’re headin’ into London, boys!”

A deafening roar rose up from the ship’s deck as all the cabin boys and crew tossed their hats and banners in excitement. It had been a long six months at sea, the longest many of them had ever been away from home. They were mother’s boys, the lot of them, whether they wanted to admit it or not, and they longed for a bit of English home and hearth. All but one, at any rate. 

Henry Swan was an American boy, the only one on the entire ship, and thus the only one who wasn’t coming home. If he had his way, he’d never go home again. A civil war was beginning to rise, and Henry wanted no part of it. What he wanted to do was explore – climb the ruins of Machu Picchu, ride an elephant in the savannah, sail across the Nile, out-drink the Scots at their best home brew. Needless violence didn’t factor into any of those plans. Besides, for an eighteen-year-old orphan, “home” was very much a relative term, anyway. 

Not to say that he was bitter about it. One would be hard-pressed to find Henry bitter about anything. He was the kind of boy who smiled on a rainy day, who hummed even when his throat was sore and sang the loudest even when he was sad. The kind of boy who read stories from his infamous fairy tale book to any child, foreign or native, who was willing to listen. The kind of boy who would save a fish from the captain’s net at risk of being marooned or put in the brig. 

The kind of boy who’d save a demon drowning in the shallows. The kind of boy who might’ve done just that barely three weeks previously…

A chill descended on the bow of the ship. The crew went eerily silent, breath taken away but some unknown specter. They departed without a word, each retreating to a different corner of the deck to whisper and mutter in fear. Henry only turned around, and, seeing the dark-haired stranger behind him, gave a brilliant smile. 

“Mr. Madden,” he greeted, “look how close we are to the city!” 

The man gave a derisive sniff and settled himself elegantly on a cargo box. Henry’s spirit wasn’t deterred in the least.

“I’ve never seen a city this big before. I’ve visited a few towns, of course, but nothing like this. It looks amazing.”

“It looks like shit.” 

The rushing waves and the salty breeze both made themselves quiet at Jefferson’s calm, dry voice. Even the raven on the mast above their heads fell silent. Henry had either failed to notice or failed to care.  
“Why do you say that, sir?”

Jefferson stared at him for a long moment, his devilish eyes coolly taking in every inch of the young boy’s face. He didn’t strike, didn’t make a move, but there was a deep well of anger in his eyes, and it had been lit with a spark of rage at Henry’s words. 

“I’ve seen the world, too,” he finally said, voice crisp but monotone. “Every inch from the Great Wall to the Andes in Peru. And there’s a common theme in all of it – cruelty. Human cruelty, fed by human suffering. But of all those places, of all those vile corners of the earth, this one is the worst. This… London. Where the poor scrounge about in a hellhole of rotting corpses whilst the privileged few sit above and make a game out of their misery. They can turn even the most wondrous beauty into filth and greed.”

He gestured grandly to the smog-infested shadows of buildings up ahead. From the corner of his eye, Henry saw the rest of the crew on-deck and the raven itself follow the man’s arm. Not for the first time, he wondered if the man he’d rescued in the China Sea was royalty, or maybe the leader of some foreign religion. He had to be something special, something different, to command such attention.

“A man should hang himself rather than enter its streets.”

Henry cocked his head to the side, eyes creased with nervousness. “It can’t be all that bad, sir, can it?” 

Jefferson didn’t answer. A line appeared in the crease of his cheek, though, and Henry wondered what that expression might mean. 

“Can it?”

The man dropped his gaze to the leather-bound storybook under Henry’s arm. He had the insane urge to hide it from the man’s wondering eyes, but he reined in the curious notion before he could make a fool of himself. This man was his friend - what did he have to fear from him? 

“You like your stories, don’t you, Mr. Swan?” Jefferson asked cautiously. “Your fairytales and your grand adventures?”

Henry vigorously nodded his head “yes”. Jefferson almost smirked. 

“How would you like to hear something a bit… different?” 

The young boy smiled from ear to ear. ”I love every kind of story, Mr. Madden. Tell away.”

That crease in the man’s jaw tightened, as did his fingers in their fists, but he made no other motion. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked ever more deeply into the book’s cover.

“Once upon a time, there was a hatter – a hat maker – named Reginald Carter. He lived in the little neighborhood of Story Brooke just down the way. Just him, his wife, and their three-year-old daughter.”

Henry had expected his friend’s eyes to give way to a little happiness, a little something that might melt that coldness in his gaze. When he glanced over, though, all he saw was a desperate, almost manic, sadness. 

“She had yellow hair, his wife. His Emma. Lovely – it fell in ringlets down her shoulders, whether it was tied up or not. The most beautiful hair in all of London. She was so beautiful, and young, and… and virtuous. And he was naïve.”

Mr. Madden took a shuddering gulp of salt air. For all the smog and seaweed in the air, though, his voice never changed in tone or inflection.

“There was another married woman – a judge’s wife, Cora – in Story Brooke. A vulture if ever I saw one. Her husband, for all that he was the actual lawman, was so wrapped around his wife’s little finger that he allowed her to make all the decisions. But for all that power, there was so much she was incapable of accomplishing; the town, evil as it was, knew better than to trust her.”

Jefferson shifted almost anxiously in his seat, perched so that his hands curled maddeningly tight around the rail.

“God knows why. Maybe Cora envied her strength. Maybe it was her beauty. Maybe she was just a bitch. No one ever found out. For some reason, Cora absolutely loathed the hatter’s young wife. Not just dislike, not even hate - loathed. She swore that she wouldn’t rest until the woman was set behind bars with a noose around her neck. But Emma was untouchable. Practically perfect. Nothing Cora tried, nothing her husband tried to enforce, ever held any sway with the court. No one would speak out against her. Each and every one of Cora’s schemes failed before they’d ever truly been hatched. All of them, until she came to a hideous conclusion. Emma might’ve been untouchable. But her shy, suspicious-looking husband?”

Jefferson shook his head. 

“He was tried and convicted for murder, and, within a year, he was shipped off to a prison in Australia. The boy had never so much as squashed a fly, but no one save for his wife would testify in his favor. Emma’s reputation was ruined by a town that named her just as guilty as her wrongly accused husband. Cora had won. And the young hatter rotted in a jail sail until he eventually lost all sense of himself. The end.”

Henry’s eyes welled with unshed tears, his heart clutched uncomfortably tight at the thought of what had happened to the poor couple. If he could, if he knew even one member of that disgraced family, he’d try his best to bring them back together. In his opinion, the worst crime on earth was needless suffering. 

“Why… how could anyone hate someone that much when they know nothing about them?”

Jefferson shrugged, but his shoulders shook too much for the action to look casual. Henry’s eyes shone with concern. 

“We could always ask around. Find out what happened to her and her husband.” 

For the first time since he’d started telling his tale, Jefferson turned to look Henry directly in the eye. Henry saw, though didn’t understand, the absolute void that he saw in them. Black as coal was too vivid a description for them - they were black asnothing.

“Oh, that was many years ago, boy. I… I doubt that anyone would remember.” 

Before Henry could comment on the hitch in Jefferson’s voice - the only real inflection he’d made since the two had met - they were both pitched forward into the railing. 

“Come on, boys!” the captain shouted overhead. ”Unload and unpack - the ladies’ll be waitin’ fer us!”

The crew whooped and hollered as they jumped off the sides of the deck. Henry moved his gaze away from Jefferson for the first time since the man had begun talking. A wide grin split his face when he realized what was going on - they’d finally reached the dock. 

The first mate settled the gangplank off to the side for those few crew members who hadn’t immediately jumped to shore. Henry readjusted his knapsack so that it hung tight across his shoulder, then clapped the older man on his.

“Well, I guess we should be getting off now. It was a pleasure, Mr. Madden.”

“Mr. Swan,” he acknowledged with a nod and a handshake. “I can’t thank you enough for saving my life.”

“It was nothing, sir,” Henry smiled. “I’ve made a good friend in you, so I can’t say it wasn’t worth it. Besides, you would’ve done the same if you saw me drowning.” 

A muscle twitched in Jefferson’s cheek. “You have an open invitation to my apartment in Story Brooke if you can’t find somewhere of your own. It’s the least I could do.”

Before Henry could respond, the older man had turned on his heel and marched off into the shadows, his dark boots and cloak blending in seamlessly with the fog. The urge to shiver rose in Henry’s spine, but he irately brushed it off. There was nothing to fear anymore. Jefferson was just afraid, a symptom of cabin fever after so much time at sea. Nowhere could be safer or more rewarding for him than the vast city of London. Here, he might finally make himself a home. 

As Henry walked away, the raven flew from its perch and cawed.


End file.
